The desire to have the hair retain a particular shape is widely held. The most common methodology for accomplishing this is the application of a composition to dampened hair, after shampooing and/or conditioning, or to dry, styled hair. These compositions provide temporary setting benefits and they can be removed by water or by shampooing. The materials used in the compositions to provide the setting benefits have generally been resins and have been applied in the form of mousses, gels, lotions or sprays.
Many people desire a high level of style retention, or hold, from a hair spray composition. In typical hair sprays, hold is achieved by the use of resins such as AMPHOMER.sup.R, supplied by National Starch and Chemical Company, and GANTREZ.sup.R, supplied by GAF. In general, as hair hold for hair spray compositions is increased, the tactile feel of the hair becomes stiffer and hence, less desirable. It is desirable to provide hair spray products which could provide an improved combination of hair hold and hair feel characteristics.
One known approach to improving hair feel has been the use of plasticizers in the hair styling composition. Unfortunately, plasticizers tend to increase the tackiness of the hair styling product when in use, and to cause a decrease in the level of hair hold.
It is also known to utilize silicone grafted organic backbone polymers as hair setting agents in hairspray compositions and other hair styling compositions, e.g. hair tonics, lotions, rinses, mousses, etc. Silicone graft copolymers can be used to make hair spray compositions which provide hair setting ability with improved hair feel, e.g., increased softness relative to conventional polymeric hair setting agents. Unfortunately, the improvements in hair feel are often at the sacrifice of some level of hair hold ability.
Thus, while hair styling compositions known heretofore provide certain hair feel benefits, it remains desirable to provide hair styling compositions which have improved hair hold (after application and drying of such compositions) for a particular level of hair feel performance or, conversely, an improved hair feel performance at a particular level of hair hold. It is a particular challenge to improve hair hold while retaining or improving upon the hair feel typically provided by silicone graft copolymers.
Hair sprays have been conventionally formulated with high amounts of monohydric alcohol solvents, such as ethanol and isopropanol, and relatively low amounts of water since the presence of water adversely affects spray quality. However, it is now particularly desirable to formulate hair spray compositions with reduced levels of volatile organic compounds, such as ethanol, isopropanol, and other volatile materials, such as aerosol propellants. One way to do this is to increase the levels of water in the formulations. In doing so, it would be highly desirable to provide reformulated products which overcome the problems conventionally associated with the addition of water to hair spray products. In particular, higher levels of water can negatively impact hair feel.
It is an object of this invention to provide hair styling compositions, and especially hair spray compositions and other aqueous, alcoholic, or hydroalcoholic-based hair setting solutions, containing hair setting agents that provide improved combinations of hair feel/hair hold performance.
It is a further object of this invention to provide hair styling compositions, as described above, that provide both improved hair feel and improved hair hold ability for a particular level of hair setting agent in the composition.
It is yet a further object of this invention to provide compositions that meet the above objects for conventional volatile organic compound level ("conventional VOC") compositions, which typically contain greater than 80% of volatile organic compounds, as well as for reduced volatile organic compound level ("reduced VOC") compositions, i.e., compositions having 80% or less volatile organic compounds.
These and other benefits as may be apparent from the description below can be obtained by the present invention.